Fabulous New Frugal Grocery Store Alert!

Right now, they are very rapidly dotting the southwest, popping up with new stores every month in California, Nevada, and Arizona, but I am pretty sure they have national expansion plans, so keep your eye out. They have just taken over all Rite-Aid stores that are closing and will be converting them to their own.

This great store is following a Trader Joe’s kind of concept, but more efficient and a more pleasant shopping experience. I don’t know about you, but every Trader Joe’s I have ever been too is like navigating a narrow field of land mines.

Anyway, they are not completely “natural food” but do boast a ton of great organic options (even organic sugar, flour, and tortilla chips – yeah no GMO’s!) and many of the natural food brands that we purchase. We were extremely happy with their prices and quality, except the produce … that is until today.

We discovered that every morning they mark down expiring produce by 50%. At 3:30pm every day, they mark any leftover down by 75%. They do this with meat and seafood also. They prepack produce like Trader Joe’s so an expiration date certainly doesn’t mean bad. I picked up two extra-meaty portobello mushrooms today that looked better than at Whole Foods for just $1.49 – for two HUGE ones. We also picked up fresh organic baby spinach, 5 ounces for $1.49, perfect for freezing, and really, they looked great. Others that made our cart included a giant bunch of organic bananas for $1, organic baby carrots for $1, organic salad mix (5oz) for $1… really I could go on, we really stocked up, no eating out this weekend. With the mark downs, even their produce fits our frugal bill.

We won’t be abandoning TJ’s as they still offer a few items that we are really happy with, but do keep an eye out as I am pretty confident that Fresh & Easy will be in your neighborhood soon!

Oh yes, side note … they have insanely attentive staff, but use mostly super efficient self-checkouts (with eager attendents). I love this, as I am able to use reusable bags without any hassle or without any checkers accidentally bagging my groceries in plastic (and then attempting to throw away the bags when I tell them I have my own!).

Disclaimer: I promise that despite the overzealous post, I am not affiliated with Fresh & Easy, beyond satisfied shopper. Just a tad excited. Can you tell?